Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(US/W.I.) usu. of young people, forward, impertinent.

1862		Capt. Clutterbuck’s Champagne 149: You no’fraid me make you eat dirt [...] you no ’fraid you find for youself to change to one lilly pig, squeakee, squeakee? You really mannish!
1873		C. Rampini Letters from Jamaica 100: You are too d–n fast, you are too mannish.
1931		N. Van Patten ‘Vocab. of the Amer. Negro’ in AS VII:1 29: Mannish. W. adj. Stubborn.
1934		Z.N. Hurston Jonah’s Gourd Vine (1995) 41: He must smell hisself – done got so mannish.
1957		H. Simmons Corner Boy 51: You’re a mannish thing.
1965		C. Brown Manchild in the Promised Land (1969) 42: Talk about sumpin mannish!
1968		I. Reed Free-Lance Pallbearers 29: Where you mannish kids going tonight?
1970		A. Young Snakes (1971) 70: You mannish rascal, you!
1980		A. Clarke Growing Up Stupid Under the Union Jack 23: Boys who were [...] ‘bad’ and who were ‘too mannish’.
1988		(con. 1930s) C.E. Lincoln The Avenue, Clayton City (1996) 157: Don’t you act mannish with me boy [...] I can still take you ’cross my knee.
1999		Dr Dre ‘Housewife’ 🎵 I’m mannish – get yo’ nails out my back.
2003		C.M. Dean-Burrows I See Da Sea Rise 109: womanish/manish – brazen, acting like an adult [...] knowing too much about the facts of life at an early age.
2012		‘Dutch’ ? (Pronounced Que) [ebook] What yo’ lil’ mannish ass want?